Study on the impact of fishery trade dependence on fishery carbon emissions: based on China’s provincial panel data

Abstract

With the intensification of global climate change, China has proposed the goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality,” aiming to achieve peak carbon emissions and comprehensive emission reduction in the shortest possible time, ultimately realizing carbon neutrality. Based on provincial panel data from 27 provinces in China from 2017 to 2023, this paper comprehensively applies dynamic panel models, threshold models, and spatial lag models to explore the impact mechanism and regional differences of fisheries trade dependence on fisheries carbon emissions, and introduces the high-carbon trade structure variable to test the moderating effect. The results show that, overall, fisheries trade dependence promotes the growth of carbon emissions, and there is a single threshold in the structure of fishermen’s income; when the income structure exceeds 0.837, the promoting effect is significantly enhanced. Fisheries carbon emissions exhibit spatial correlation; in the long term, trade dependence suppresses local carbon emissions but aggravates carbon emissions in neighboring regions, and a high-carbon trade structure amplifies this spatial spillover. Based on these findings, it is recommended to optimize the trade structure, strengthen technological emission reduction, and implement differentiated governance; through carbon tax incentives, green certification, and unified standards, coordinate fisheries development with emission reduction goals, and ensure industrial competitiveness while curbing the spatial spillover of carbon emissions.